Bar Association Head on the Commercial Registry in Baabda: The Closure Is Unjust and Silence Is No Longer Permissible

The following statement was issued by the head of the Beirut Bar Association:

Condemnation and denunciation are no longer enough in the face of the ongoing closure of the commercial registry in Baabda, and the accompanying state of neglect and unjustified procrastination in addressing this crisis, despite the grave repercussions affecting citizens’ rights, the regular conduct of legal and commercial transactions, and the proper functioning of justice.

This reality cannot be justified by any circumstance, nor is it acceptable to hide behind the war and use it as a convenient excuse. On the contrary, the external war should serve as an incentive to fortify the domestic front, rather than persist in the closure and the serious harm it inflicts on legal and economic security, as well as the severe damage it causes to lawyers, litigants, business owners and companies, and the paralysis it has brought to the completion of transactions, amid the absence of any serious and swift measures to address the current situation.

Accordingly, I affirm that the Bar Association, acting out of its responsibilities and beyond the scope of its formal jurisdiction, has taken all reasonable arrangements to help expedite the restoration of regular operations at the registry, but to no avail.

Therefore,

While I warn that continued inaction is no longer acceptable under any pretext, I call on the competent official and judicial authorities to move immediately and decisively to reopen the commercial registry and restore the regularity of its work, and to take the necessary measures to prevent a recurrence of this disruption, which strikes at the very core of the interests of people and institutions.

I also reserve, in the name of the Bar Association, the right to take the appropriate positions and measures in defense of rights holders, to safeguard the dignity of justice, and to ensure the proper functioning of public judicial and administrative institutions.

Silence in the face of this vacuum is no longer permissible; rather, it has become an injustice against rights holders.